Weston is mentally fit to stand trial

Ac­cused Ta­cony “House of Hor­rors” mas­ter­mind Linda Ann We­st­on has been pro­nounced men­tally fit to stand tri­al as a Dec. 19 pre­lim­in­ary hear­ing date looms for her and three co-de­fend­ants.

Dur­ing a Nov. 16 mo­tions hear­ing be­fore Mu­ni­cip­al Court Judge Sheila Woods-Skip­per, We­st­on’s at­tor­ney, George Yacoubi­an Jr., re­por­ted that a psy­chi­at­rist ex­amined his cli­ent on Nov. 7 and had found her com­pet­ent to par­ti­cip­ate in her own de­fense.

Yet, Yacoubi­an re­portedly de­scribed the con­clu­sion as a “close call” and said that We­st­on will con­tin­ue to un­der­go psy­chi­at­ric treat­ment. Ac­cord­ing to The Phil­adelphia In­quirer, the at­tor­ney said We­st­on is men­tally re­tarded and shows signs of para­noia.

We­st­on, 51, and three co-de­fend­ants are ac­cused of hold­ing five men­tally dis­abled people cap­tive — in­clud­ing at least four in the sub-base­ment of a Ta­cony apart­ment build­ing — while col­lect­ing their So­cial Se­cur­ity and dis­ab­il­ity be­ne­fit in­come.

Her co-de­fend­ants are Gregory Thomas, 47; Ed­die Wright, 50; and Jean McIn­tosh, 32. Po­lice have de­scribed Thomas as We­st­on’s boy­friend and Wright as a trav­el­ing com­pan­ion of the couple. McIn­tosh is We­st­on’s daugh­ter.

On Oct. 15, Phil­adelphia po­lice raided the apart­ment build­ing where McIn­tosh lived on the 4700 block of Long­shore Ave. after the land­lord re­por­ted find­ing four adults locked in a dark, dirty and damp boil­er room be­neath the primary base­ment. We­st­on, Thomas and Wright were ar­res­ted that day in con­nec­tion with the al­leged hu­man im­pris­on­ment.

McIn­tosh was ar­res­ted Oct. 19 after au­thor­it­ies dis­covered a fifth vic­tim that al­legedly had been held cap­tive in McIn­tosh’s apart­ment and over­looked in the ini­tial search of the apart­ment build­ing. That vic­tim, We­st­on’s 19-year-old niece, al­legedly was moved from the Long­shore Av­en­ue build­ing to a house in Frank­ford after the ini­tial round of ar­rests.